Manhattan Gothic

Though written for adult readers, this novel is a children's story at heart. Its hero, eleven-year-old Jeff Greenaway, is at the age when children are famously hard to fool. One evening his parents unexpectedly receive coveted tickets to the popular musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, but they have no one to watch Jeff. He heads out into the Manhattan night to find his idol, Count Zackuloff, the gloomy, ghoulish host of Midnight Mystery Theater, a horror movie program on Channel Five.

To Jeff's delight, the Count invites him along on a costumed publicity appearance at the Horn and Hardart Automat, where a crowd of curious fans gathers. The Count then brings the boy to a double feature horror matinee at the 58th Street Translux. The two develop an unlikely friendship, and Jeff dreams of one day becoming the Count's sidekick on screen. The Count, however, has ambitions of his own, and they do not include spending his career introducing old horror films on a minor New York television station.

The story captures New York City as a natural playground for a boy and his very own vampire hero, recalling a time when it seemed that every dream might come true.